O ensino da transformação da energia numa abordagem interdisciplinar

Abstract

One of the greatest difficulties that teachers in the field of natural sciences encounter is relating subjects taught in their disciplines to phenomena and concrete facts in their students' daily lives. These and other circumstances end up making it partially difficult for their students to assimilate the content. The main aim of this work is to use a low-cost experiment as a practical and multidisciplinary example to overcome this learning difficulty. This experiment will use potatoes, pieces of string, paper clips, alligators and 3-volt LED bulbs. An electric current will be generated in an acidic environment (the potato) as a result of the potential difference between two materials of different electronegativities (the paper clip and the copper wire). The work will be carried out in two elementary school classes in the municipal school system of Fortaleza and two secondary school classes in the state school system of Ceará, in the city of Fortaleza. In these classes, after carrying out the experiment, the students will be asked to report back and a questionnaire will be applied to identify the positive points and the main difficulties. After this questionnaire has been applied, classes will be held to discuss the main difficulties, where suggestions will also be received from the students that may help to improve the methodology. This dissertation ultimately discusses the role of experimentation, its potential connections with the concepts of work and energy, and the transformation of energy in a broader sense.